Mechanized automatic harvesting machines are widely used in large scale farming operations in the grain farming regions of the world, particularly in the United States and Canada. These machines permit a significant reduction in the man hours required to harvest a crop and allow a single farmer to farm large acreages, which was impossible in the labor-intensive farming industry at the turn of the twentieth century in the United States, and even today, in many parts of the world.
Although large scale mechanized farming and harvesting operations are well known in conjunction with grain farming, such mechanized farming has eluded vegetable farmers in most cases. Most vegetables are harvested by hand. This requires a large number of workers per acre of crop to accomplish the harvesting, since the crop generally has only a very short time (a matter of a few days) in most cases, when it is at its peak for harvesting. As labor costs continuously increase, the cost of vegetables produced on such farms continues to rise accordingly.
Some progress has been made to alleviate the high cost of labor in harvesting vegetable crops. This has occurred particularly with respect to the harvesting of peas and beans. For such vegetables, mechanical harvesting machines have been developed which fairly effectively permit the harvesting of a crop. These machines, however, typically gather the plants up and tear them apart to supply the peas or beans to one part of the machine and the remainder of the plant to another part, from which it is discharged as refuse. Such harvesting machines destroy the plants which are bearing the crops to be harvested; so that multiple harvesting of the same plants cannot be effected. In addition, since the machines remove the entire plant during the harvesting operation, separation of the desired parts, the vegetables, from the rest of the plant residue, becomes a significant factor in providing a relatively clean harvest which is not intermixed with undesired plant residue. Special separators and related apparatus is required in order to effect maximum separation of the desired crop from the undesired plant residue.
Although machines of the type described above have been used with some degree of success for picking beans and peas, mechanized picking machines for peppers (such as green and red chiles, bell peppers and the like) and tomatoes, capable of harvesting the crop without damaging it or destroying the plant, or both, have not been developed until the machine disclosed in Rodriguez U.S. Pat. No. 4,196,570. The machine of that patent employs a picking mechanism mounted on a central rotatable shaft, which is located above the row of plants to be picked. The shaft is longitudinally aligned parallel with the row. The shaft has a helical guide attached to it, with the spacing between adjacent turns of the helix selected to be equal to the spacing between each plant in the row of plants to be picked. A number of arcuate picking elements are mounted on the helix; and these picking elements extend between the outer turns of the helix and the shaft to engage the peppers or other vegetables on the plant to pick them as the machine is moved over the row of plants, and as the shaft is rotated. As a consequence, after harvesting, the plant can be used to produce subsequent crops for harvest. This results in substantial savings.
A disadvantage of the machine of the Rodriguez U.S. Pat. No. 4,196,570, however, is that the rotational speed of the helix and the location of each turn of the helix must be carefully synchronized with the movement of the machine and the spacing of the plants. Otherwise, the plants can be torn up or uprooted as the row of plants is harvested. If the helix rotation is out of synchronization with the movement of the machine over the row, or if the plant-to-plant spacing is different from the turn-to-turn spacing of the helix, substantial damage to the plants can occur. Thus, it is necessary in the use of the machine of the Rodriguez U.S. Pat. No. 4,196,570 to exercise extreme skill and care in threading the machine through the row of plants to effect the picking operation.
A later U.S. Pat. No. to Rodriguez, No. 5,174,093, is directed to overcoming the problems noted above for U.S. Pat. No. 4,196,570. In the device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,174,093, the helical picking element has been replaced with a pair of spaced-apart picking members mounted on a shaft rotated transversely to the row of plants and the direction of movement of the harvesting machine. Two picking members in the form of circular wheels are used; and each of them has a plurality of arcuate picking elements on them. The picking elements extend into the space between the two picking members and operate to strip the crop from the plants while leaving the plants in a relatively undisturbed condition after they have been picked. In order to effect a proper picking operation, however, the picking members, in the form of the rotating wheels, rotate in a direction opposite to the direction of movement of the machine. This causes the picking elements to engage the plants from beneath as the plants first enter the machine. The picking elements then sweep upwardly through the plant to remove the peppers or other crop from the plant. This tends to throw the peppers upwards and outwardly toward the front of the machine; so that special screens and baffles are required to reduce the loss of harvested crop which otherwise may be thrown to the ground and wasted. Even with additional baffles and screens, the machine of this patent, however, still is far more economical than harvesting the crop by hand, since the reduction in harvesting costs far outweighs the value of any crop which is lost.
It is desirable to provide a machine which picks a crop in the manner of the machine of U.S. Pat. No. 5,174,093, but which throws the harvested crop toward the rear of the machine as it moves through a row of plants, and which reduces the losses of crop during the harvesting operation.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved mechanized harvesting machine.
It is another object of this invention to provide an improved mechanized harvesting machine which harvests a crop without damaging the plant from which the crop is harvested.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide an improved mechanized pepper harvesting machine.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide an improved mechanized pepper harvesting machine which strips the peppers from a plant and generally throws them toward the rear of the machine as the machine moves forward through a row of plants.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved mechanized pepper harvesting machine employing pivotal arcuate picking elements which first are moved out of engagement with a plant beginning passage through the machine, and which then are pivoted to a picking position to strip the peppers upwardly from the plant, as the machine moves over the plant.
In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, a mechanized mobile harvesting machine has a frame on which a rotatable shaft is mounted, substantially parallel to the ground, and transversely to the direction of movement of the machine. First and second spaced-apart picking members, generally in the form of open circular hoops, are mounted on the shaft for rotation by the shaft. Each of these picking members is located in a plane which is perpendicular to the shaft. Each of the picking members has a plurality of arcuate picking elements pivotally mounted on it. A first cam is located to pivot the picking elements to a first position adjacent the picking members at a predetermined rotational position of the picking members. At a different or subsequent rotational position, a second cam then pivots the picking elements to a second position to cause the picking elements to extend a predetermined distance into the space between the first and second picking members for removing crop from plants as the machine moves along a row of plants; and the shaft is rotated to rotate the picking members.